Tips a Writer Can Use To Reject Rejection

Do you have a goal of being published one day?

Well if your answer is yes, you may as well say you have a goal of being rejected; because this is going to happen no matter how good you are as a writer.

If you are afraid of rejection, then you are in the wrong trade. Writers eat rejection for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Sometimes they get a treat for behaving well and get the crumbs of acceptance.

That’s if they sit below the dining table for long enough. In this article, I am planning to teach you how to reject rejection.

Ask any good writer how many times they have been rejected and they will tell you that receiving a rejection letter is actually a privilege.

Do you know that there are people who will never receive a rejection letter in their lives? It’s difficult to deliver a rejection letter to someone living under a rock somewhere in the Amazon Jungle.

Good writers such as Linda Formichelli and Diana Burrell will tell you that you should never give too much credit to rejections. They know what they are talking about.

Tips for Rejecting Rejection

In order for you to successfully deal with rejection, you need to change the way you think of it. Think of it as a business decision. How many times in your life do you look at several offers, reject many and select one?

You see, you are just making a business decision. The product you rejected will be picked up by someone soon after you have rejected it.

1. Never Stop Creating Ideas

The only time when you have really been rejected is when you stop creating ideas and pitching them to publications. In the beginning, you will need this a lot. As time goes on you get better at doing it.

The irony of this whole situation is that as you get better at pitching ideas that lead to less rejection, you no longer need to pitch them, as editors start approaching you with assignments. It doesn’t matter how often you get rejected, just pitch the ideas.

2. Take It as Their Loss

If you want to tell an editor that you can do something for them, you better be able to show that indeed you can. Sending out those proposals with spelling and grammar mistakes will just give the editor and her staff something to laugh about.

Well, if they still reject you after you have pitched a well-written document, do not take it personally, it’s their loss.

3. Do Not Throw Away a Rejected Idea

Can you imagine what would happen if the local car salesman threw away every car that a customer refused to buy? Well, if I saw the place where he throws them away to, I would pick them up and sell them.

Never reject your work just because someone has rejected it. Take the work, polish it and send it to someone else. That article which has just been rejected will find a home somewhere.

4. Remember Who Else Was Rejected

When you receive a rejection letter, always remember that the big guns such as J.K. Rawlings were also once rejected. I don’t think the person who rejected her has ever forgiven themselves.

If Chicken Soup for the Soul by Mark Victor Hansen and Jack Canfields was thrown into the bin the day it was rejected for the first time, it would never have seen the other 19 rejections and the final success that it now enjoys.

As a writer, you will need to understand that the path to success is filled with uncomfortable parts and rejection is one of them.

5. Make Your Articles Renewable

The ability to recycle articles is something every good freelance writer should know how to do very well.

Sometimes you will be asked to write an article that will eventually never see the light of day even if it starts off promising. Take the article, dust it, and pitch it to another publication. Use every article that has been rejected as your library for new ideas.

6. Keep the Reason in Mind

Do you know that a publication can reject a good piece not because it is bad but because it is not suitable for the publication? The author who suffers is one who thinks that every rejection means that their work sucks.

There are many reasons why your idea can be rejected including that the publication does not have resources at that particular time.

7. Confront the Reasons Why You Fear Rejection

Since you now know that your path to success is filled with rejection, you are better off taking the rejection by the horns. If you feel a little insecure, you need to remember all the great work you have done that has been accepted. This will show you that it’s not about you.

8. Learn From the Rejection

If you treat every rejection as a lesson, then you will never fail. If I could put together all the lessons I have learned from rejection, I could get awarded a degree for the things I have learned.

Rejection only becomes a failure if you do not learn anything from it.

As a freelance writer, if you do not learn to reject rejection, you will never see success. The success that should have been yours will go to someone else. The only difference between that person and you is that they have learned to deal with that R-word successfully.

Tia Moreen is a writer, entrepreneur and traveler, who was a Co-founder of EssayHub. Now she mostly works as a blog editor, writes about education and inspiration, academic and fiction writing and how to improve it. Loves book-crossing and cooking.